Dice are becoming increasingly more complex and may include a number of thin layers of insulating and conducting materials that are used to construct integrated circuitry thereon. Additionally, to increase operating speeds and reduce power, low dielectric constant materials are used. In some cases, materials other than silicon, e.g., gallium arsenide and gallium nitride, are used to produce the semiconductor wafers from which dice are made. These newer materials are more fragile than conventionally used materials.
To make efficient use of the above-mentioned materials, thousands of die are typically produced from a single wafer. The wafer is then separated into individual dice by means of one of a variety of known singulation or dicing processes. In one example, a dicing process uses a rotating saw that mechanically grinds a non-active area of the semiconductor wafer until adjoining dice are detached from one another. Typically, the saw movement follows a substantially straight line path, and consequently, the dice are generally rectangular or square in shape. Each die in a wafer is typically the same size or of an integer multiple that accommodates the wafer sawing process.
Although saw dicing has been effectively used for singulating dice in the past, it has not been adequate for singulating newer and thinner dice and for wafer material that are more fragile. For example, the rotating saw may inadvertently damage the die edges. Specifically, the saw may cause edge defects on outer peripheral edges or corners of the dice, such as micro-cracks. These defects may form crack propagation sites. Additionally, the presence of edge defects and cracks makes the die especially prone to cracking or chipping at places along its perimeter where it is sawn from the wafer when used later in semiconductor assembly processing or in an end-use application. The aforementioned issues may result in yield loss and may compromise the operability of the resultant device.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device that minimizes losses that result from cracking and chipping of the die during assembly. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide a method for making a semiconductor device that permits the manufacture of die of various sizes and shapes within a single wafer from various substrate materials, such as silicon, gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, or the like, without increased incidence of cracking or chipping of the die. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.